(if you do not know already I am raising chickens in my backyard, click here for the background story)

I knew that my chicks were starting to grow and become more mobile, their wing feathers were completely grown in, and they were jumping around the coop. I knew it was time to clip their wings, and keep them from escape their home. I knew all of this yet did not act on it, I put it off until the infinite of tomorrows. Being wrapped up in the rigor of my daily schedule and naively thinking that they were too small to escape  I simply did not clip my chicks wings.

Now PETA before you go complete idiot on me and say, “that I shouldn’t chop off the birds wing because that’s how they measure they’re self-worth and if a bird loses its wings it will spiral into a deep depression and lose all hope for life.” Please know that one you’re opinion is illogical and two when I say clip their wings I mean trim their feathers so that they can’t use their wings to help them jump over stuff (like a fence).

I am embarrassed to admit that I came home this week to my roommate and farming buddy Cass telling me that one of our chickens were missing. He had looked everywhere for the chick but couldn’t find the little thing. Correction, we still have not found the little thing. I am 99.9% sure that the bird is dead. Either it was eaten by one of the neighbor’s dogs (there is one on each side of our fence) or she managed to venture into the pasture across the street and was trampled by a cow.

However, there is a very small possibility that the chick ventured to our neighbors yard where the house of four college girls found the helpless bird, mistook it for a wild animal, and are currently housing the chick in their garage until it is grown up and ready to be released into the wild. Again this is extremely unlikely.
Now how the tiny chick managed to jump over our 8’ (that little tick means feet) fence is a mystery that will never be solved. Kudos to you bird that would for sure win at the Olympics in chicken jumping, if you didn’t die… All I know for certain is that I clipped the remaining bird’s wings and now there is no way I am going to lose another one.

As unfortunate as it was to lose the chick (more so for the dead chick than myself) I am reminded of two valuable lessons. 1 – I should stick with pigs, the animal I know, and 2 – that seemingly harmless procrastination left alone too long will turn into a bigger problem. And that convincing myself that it is logical and safe to put off tasks is a bad idea. Because eventually that logic will be invalid, and I will have to face the consequences.

As always, make good choices, share if you like what I said, comment if you have something to add, and I will see you on Thursday. Until then, here are some pictures of my not so adorable chicks (don’t worry I spared y’all the ugly softball phase of development).